Publication

This paper discusses the question whether the US is a normative foreign policy actor. In order to assess US foreign policy, the author applies a framework of different foreign policy types. After presenting a number of studies on foreign policy cases, the author concludes that the US is not always a normative international actor. The US has at times been a norm entrepreneur and at other times a norm blocker; it has acted with the coldest calculations of Realpolitik, behaved more as a hegemon but at times also as an imperial power and has been content with the status quo.